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The library system is moving to a new mobile app! The current library mobile app will not be available after February. This only relates to the library’s mobile app (used on phones and tablets). You can still connect to the library through your desktop, laptop, or mobile device’s web browser at https://csmlibrary.bibliocommons.com/ Projected date for the new mobile app is March. We apologize for the inconvenience

Indian Summers

Set against the sweeping grandeur of the Himalayas and tea plantations of Northern India, this epic drama tells the rich and explosive story of the decline of the British Empire and the birth of modern India, from both sides of the experience.

Comment

The cinematography was spectacular. The story started off slow but the character development kept me interested. It left me with many unanswered questions as to some of the relationships between the characters. As for the historical value, not sure that this gives an accurate account but it enticed me enough to want to see "The Jewel in the Crown" which appears to have been based on historical novels.

I found the first episodes of this series extremely enjoyable - love and family and history and political conflicts - a bit of a soap opera but in a good way. The production is elaborate and creates the time period of the 1930s in India beautifully. The characters are developed to seem real and represent the British and the Indians of that time. And lots of suspense and mystery and intrigue.

However by the end of the last episode of Season One I wasn't sure if I wanted to see any more of it. The story lines had deteriorated and become repetitive and the violence, racism and bigotry toward the Indian people was hard to watch. The was not enough depth to the reasons for these behaviors and the relationship between Britain and India that went back centuries. The good thing is that it made me get out my history book and learn more about that history.

I checked out Season Two of the series and did not even finish watching the first episode - it was just more of the same. I read that the series had been cancelled after the second season and looking at the ratings it seemed many others felt the same as I did. This was a difficult and ugly part of Britain's history - the treatment of the Indian people was beyond deplorable so maybe it was something the British would rather not revisit in soap opera format. I have heard that "The Jewel in the Crown" - a 1980s BBC TV production based on a series of historical novels - does a much better job of depicting this era.

Surely in the same league as Ghandi, Passage to India, and almost as good as The Jewel in the Crown quartet. It falls on all of us to study the mistakes made by the empire during the colonial days; to see the injustices, racism and greed. And learn from this.

An above average soap opera version of The Jewel In The Crown, the first installment in telling how the Indian nation got its independence from the British Raj (1858–1947.) Central figures were the Machiavelian British socialites and the brooding Indian subjects in one Summer at Simla. Thoroughly enjoyed this picturesque period epic though filmed in Penang, Malaysia which was once occupied by the East Indian Company as well. (They did a good job to exclude its infamous monkeys that roam freely in troops all over Penang Hill.)

Sorry, we couldn't really take more than the first three episodes. I expected a sort of "Downton Abbey in India," instead we get a sort of "Peyton Place: Raj." Obviously more is going on than the rebellion, but it's hard to care enough about the characters to wonder what.

A slow start but stick with it. The entire series covers just one summer season in the hills, where the British "elite" go to escape the heat. There are rumblings of unrest amongst the Indian population and Gandhi is amassing a following. Interesting cast with many relatively unknown actors but Julie Walters is marvellous as the scheming owner of the local club. There has to be another series, surely?